The 2024 Candidates Tournament was an eight-player

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

tournament, held to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship 2024. The tournament took place at The Great Hall in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, from April 3–22, 2024. The event was held alongside the Women's Candidates Tournament. The event was won by

Gukesh Dommaraju Gukesh Dommaraju (born 29 May 2006) is an Indian chess grandmaster and the reigning World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, Gukesh is the youngest undisputed world champion, the youngest player to have surpassed a FIDE rating of 2750, doing s ...

, which made him the youngest ever winner of a

Candidates Tournament The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The win ...

, and the youngest ever

World Chess Championship The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Gukesh Dommaraju, who defeated the previous champion Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship 2024, 2024 World Chess Championship. ...

challenger. Following the event Gukesh went on to become the youngest undisputed World Champion by defeating Ding Liren in the 14th and last classical game. As with every Candidates tournament since

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

, it was a double

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

.Regulations for the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024
(PDF)

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

The winner of the tournament earned the right to play the World Chess Championship 2024 against the defending World Chess Champion

Ding Liren Ding Liren ( zh, c=丁立人; born 24October 1992) is a Chinese chess grandmaster who was the 17th World Chess Champion from 2023–24. He is also a three-time Chinese Chess Champion, was a member of the Chinese chess teams that won the Chess ...

Qualification

The qualifiers for the Candidates Tournament were:

Withdrawal of Magnus Carlsen

Despite qualifying for the Candidates Tournament by winning the 2023 FIDE World Cup, former World Champion

Magnus Carlsen Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster. Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion, five-time World Rapid Chess Championship, World Rapid Chess Champio ...

decided not to compete in Toronto. He had previously stated his disinclination after reaching the semifinals of the World Cup, stating that "under the current format there is absolutely no chance" he will play the Candidates. In January 2024, after official confirmation of the candidates list, Magnus Carlsen formally confirmed his decision to decline FIDE's invitation to play in the Candidates Tournament by stating "I would say the main reason is that I don't enjoy it. It's as simple as that." As a result, Nijat Abasov, who finished fourth at the World Cup, qualified to the Candidates Tournament 2024 as Carlsen's replacement.

FIDE and Grand Chess Tour agreement

In April 2022, before announcing all the qualification methods, FIDE announced that the top two finishers in the 2023 Grand Chess Tour would qualify to the 2024 Candidates Tournament. FIDE promised that more details would follow, but later announced qualification paths excluding the Grand Chess Tour, without providing an explanation for the change. However, the Grand Chess Tour tournaments counted toward the qualifying path of the FIDE Circuit.

FIDE Rating qualifier

The highest rated player in the January 2024 rating list who has not yet qualified for the Candidates or

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

, and has participated in at least four FIDE Circuit classical events, qualified for the Candidates. The rating qualifier turned out to be hotly contested. After a poor showing in the 2023 Sinquefield Cup, rating spot front-runner Alireza Firouzja lost nearly thirteen rating points, putting him behind Wesley So in the live ratings. In an attempt to surpass So, the

Chartres Chartres () is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir Departments of France, department in the Centre-Val de Loire Regions of France, region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 1 ...

Chess Club organized three two-game matches between Firouzja and grandmasters

Alexandre Dgebuadze Alexandre Dgebuadze (born 21 May 1971) is a Georgian-born Belgian chess player who played for Georgia until 2000. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2000. Chess career He has won the Georgian Chess Championship in 1990, and the ...

(52 years old, rated 2439), Andrei Shchekachev (51 years old, rated 2506), and Sergey Fedorchuk (42 years old, rated 2546). These matches, held in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, were collectively referred to as "Alireza Firouzja's Race to Candidates". Firouzja needed to win all six games (or win the first five and not play the sixth) to overtake So in the live ratings. He indeed won the first five games after some controversy (such as Shchekachev resigning in a position that turned out to be equal in game 3), but decided to play the sixth game anyway. In what was effectively a must-win game, Firouzja overpushed and landed in a bad endgame, but with both players in time trouble, Fedorchuk accepted Firouzja's draw offer. The 5.5/6 result still left Firouzja behind So in the live rating list. The last-minute nature of the event as well as the hand-selecting of opponents drew criticism, including from So, who revealed he turned down similar opportunities because he disagreed with the morality of such events. Shortly after these matches were announced,

affirmed that it had the right to not rate any specific event, and the

United States Chess Federation The United States Chess Federation (also known as US Chess or USCF) is the governing body for chess competition in the United States and represents the U.S. in FIDE, The World Chess Federation (FIDE). USCF administers the official national Chess ...

called on FIDE to not rate Firouzja's games. FIDE's response drew criticism from many, including Ian Nepomniachtchi, who pointed out that

had also played last-minute games to qualify for the

Candidates Tournament 2022 The 2022 Candidates Tournament was an eight-player chess tournament to decide the challenger for the World Chess Championship 2023. The tournament took place at the Palacio de Santoña in Madrid, Spain, from June 16 to July 5, 2022, On December 25, FIDE announced new rules, effective immediately, requiring events with at least one player rated over 2700 (or at least one woman player rated over 2500) to be registered at least one month in advance; however, the rule would not be applied retroactively for Alireza Firouzja's Race to Candidates tournament. This requirement could be waived with the approval of the FIDE president or QC Chairman. That same day, Alireza Firouzja's matches (as well as another match in Chartres in which Firouzja did not play) were removed from FIDE's website. Having fallen short, Firouzja withdrew from the World Rapid and Blitz championship to participate in the Open de Rouen tournament, which was a minor Swiss-system tournament with a top prize of €700. Firouzja won all 7 games, including a win against former world championship challenger

Gata Kamsky Gata Kamsky (; ; born June 2, 1974) is a Soviet-born American chess grandmaster, and a five-time U.S. champion. Kamsky reached the final of the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 at the age of 22, and reached a ranking of fourth in the world ...

. This gained Firouzja enough rating to surpass So on the January 2024 rating list even if the Chartres event was not rated, which turned out to be the case. Firouzja was officially confirmed as the rating qualifier on the January ratings list.

Organization

The tournament was an eight-player, double round-robin tournament, meaning there were 14 rounds with each player facing each of the others twice: once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces. The tournament winner would qualify to play

for the World Championship in 2024. Players from the same federation were required to play each other in the first rounds of each half to discourage collusion. The players affected in the 2024 Candidates are R Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi and Gukesh Dommaraju from India, and Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura from the United States. The former three all faced one another in rounds 1–3 and 8–10, while the latter two faced each other in rounds 1 and 8. FIDE announced pairings for the tournament in March 2024. The arbitration team for the event were Chief Arbiter Aris Marghetis (CAN) and Deputy Chief arbiters Carolina Solis Munoz (CRC) and Andrew Howie (SCO). Anna Burtasova served as the Press Officer.

Regulations

The time control was 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move starting from move 41. Players got 1 point for a win, ½ point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. Tiebreaks for the first place would have been addressed as follows: * If two players were tied, they would play two

rapid chess Fast chess, also known as speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time than classical chess time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blitz chess, and bullet chess. A ...

games at 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. If a three- to six-way tie occurred, a single round-robin would be played. If seven or eight players are tied, a single round-robin would be played with a time limit of 10 minutes plus 5 seconds per move. * If any players were tied for first after the rapid chess games, they would play two

blitz chess Fast chess, also known as speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time than classical chess time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blitz chess, and bullet chess. A ...

games at 3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move. In the case of more than two players being tied, a single round-robin would be played. * If any players were still tied for first after these blitz chess games, the remaining players would play a knock-out blitz tournament at the same time control. In each mini-match of the proposed knock-out tournament, the first player to win a game would win the mini-match. Ties for places other than first were broken by, in order: (1)

Sonneborn–Berger score The Sonneborn–Berger score (or the Neustadtl score or rarely Neustadtl Sonneborn–Berger score) is a scoring system often used to break ties in chess tournaments. It is computed by summing the full conventional score of each defeated opponen ...

; (2) total number of wins; (3) head-to-head score among tied players; (4) drawing of lots. The prize money is

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

48,000 for first place, €36,000 for second place, and €24,000 for third place (with players on the same number of points sharing prize money, irrespective of tie-breaks), plus €3,500 per half-point for every player, for a total prize pool of €500,000.

Schedule

All rounds are scheduled to start at 14:30 EDT local time (18:30

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

Results

Standings

Tie-breakers for first place: (1) results in tie-break games for first place; Tie-breakers for non-first place: (1) results in tie-break games for first place, if any; (2)

(SB); (3) total number of wins; (4) head-to-head score among tied players; (5) drawing of lots.Regulations for the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024
(PDF)

Note: Numbers in the crosstable in a white background indicate the result playing the respective opponent with the white pieces (black pieces if on a black background). This does ''not'' give information which of the two games was played in the first half of the tournament, and which in the second.

Points by round

This table shows the total number of wins minus the total number of losses each player has after each round. '=' indicates the player has won and lost the same number of games after that round. Green backgrounds indicate the player(s) with the highest score after each round. Red backgrounds indicate player(s) who could no longer win the tournament after each round.

Summary

A poll before the tournament of

Chessbase ChessBase is a German company that develops and sells chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates an internet chess server for online chess. Founded in 1986, it maintains and sells large-scale databases containing the moves of recor ...

readers found Caruana a substantial favorite. Former world champions

Viswanathan Anand Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster. Anand is a five-time World Chess Champion, a two-time World Rapid Chess Champion, a two-time Chess World Cup Champion and a World Blitz Chess Cup Champion. ...

and

echoed this opinion, albeit also thinking that Nakamura should likewise be counted among the favorites, with Nepomniachtchi and Firouzja also in contention. Round one resulted in all draws, albeit with some fighting chess, before the tournament burst into life in round 2. Vidit used his preparation to surprise and ultimately defeat Nakamura, while Praggnanandhaa outprepared Gukesh, but overestimated his position and ended up losing. Caruana outplayed Abasov in a positional domination, and Nepomniachtchi–Firouzja was a back-and-forth affair that Nepomniachtchi eventually won. In round 3, Abasov and Nakamura agreed to an uneventful draw, while Gukesh was able to put Nepomniachtchi under pressure, but could not convert. Praggnanandhaa, on the other hand, launched the highly adventurous Ruy Lopez Jaenisch Gambit Deferred, catching Vidit by surprise. He managed to navigate the resulting complex and double-edged position better than Vidit, earning the only win in the round. Round 4 saw more fighting chess, but only one decisive game: Nepomniachtchi defeated Vidit in a

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

endgame, propelling him into the sole lead.In round 5, Praggnanandhaa and Vidit got strong positions against Nepomniachtchi and Caruana respectively, to come very close to winning, but both Nepomniachtchi and Caruana managed to survive. Meanwhile, both Abasov and Firouzja made crucial mistakes in the endgame to lose. The results meant Gukesh joined Nepomniachtchi in the lead. Both Abasov and Firouzja lost again in round 6, albeit in contrasting fashions. Praggnanandhaa outplayed Abasov after a tense middlegame, while Firouzja played 13...Qxf2? (diagram) to quickly land in a losing position. GM Daniel King suggested afterwards that Firouzja might be "on

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". In round 7, Firouzja once again landed in a difficult position, but this time found the right moves to pose problems, and Gukesh made a mistake under time pressure to give Firouzja the win. The other games ended drawn, which meant Nepomniachtchi finished the first half as the sole leader. The second half of the tournament began with a major shakeup in the standings. Tail-ender Abasov held a draw with Black against Nepomniachtchi, while Gukesh came back from his heartbreaking 7th round loss by defeating Vidit Gujrathi in spectacular fashion. This meant Gukesh joined Nepomniachtchi in first place. Meanwhile, Nakamura beat Caruana to join Praggnanandhaa in third place. In round 9, Vidit defeated Nakamura while the other games ended drawn. Among them, the tensest was Firouzja–Nepomniachtchi. Firouzja came close to winning, but Nepomniachtchi defended tenaciously to draw. Nakamura bounced back immediately in the next round with a win against Abasov after getting into a bad position, while Caruana also won against Firouzja. The top-of-the-table clash in round 10 between Gukesh and Nepomniachtchi ended in a draw, leaving the two still in the lead, with Caruana, Nakamura and Praggnanandhaa half a point behind. In round 11, Nakamura defeated Praggnanandhaa, while Nepomniachtchi defeated Vidit in a complicated game where both sides had chances. Gukesh–Caruana ended in a draw, leaving Nepomniachtchi once again in sole lead. In round 12, Nepomniachtchi drew his game, Nakamura won his third game in a row, and Gukesh and Caruana also won. This put Nepomniachtchi, Nakamura and Gukesh in a three-way tie for first, Caruana half a point behind, and no other player able to win the tournament. A critical round 13 saw Gukesh defeat Firouzja and Caruana defeat Praggnanandhaa, while Nepomniachtchi and Nakamura drew. This gave Gukesh a half-point lead over his three rivals going into the final round. The final round saw Nakamura as white against Gukesh and Caruana white against Nepomniachtchi, with Nakamura, Caruana and Nepomniachtchi all needing to win. Gukesh and Nakamura's game ended in a fighting draw, with neither player ever having a decisive advantage. The game between Caruana and Nepomniachtchi was far more dramatic. Caruana played some exemplary chess to gain a winning advantage, but Nepomniachtchi defended stubbornly, constantly posing problems. A very complicated endgame resulted in which the engine evaluation oscillated back and forth, but Caruana made the last inaccuracy, and Nepomniachtchi successfully held the draw. With the draw, Gukesh won the tournament and the right to play for the title against Ding Liren later in 2024. Nijat Abasov - Ian Nepomniachtchi, Candidates Tournament 2024 04.jpg, Abasov vs. Nepomniachtchi (Round 1) Hikaru Nakamura - Fabiano Caruana, Candidates Tournament 2024 03.jpg, Nakamura vs. Caruana (Round 1) Alireza Firouzja - R Praggnanandhaa, Candidates Tournament 2024 05.jpg, Firouzja vs. Praggnanandhaa (Round 1) Alireza Firouzja - Gukesh D, Candidates Tournament 2024 01.jpg, Firouzja vs. Gukesh (Round 7) Fabiano Caruana - R Praggnanandhaa, Candidates Tournament 2024 01.jpg, Caruana vs. Praggnanandhaa (Round 7) Hikaru Nakamura - Ian Nepomniachtchi, Candidates Tournament 2024.jpg, Nakamura vs. Nepomniachtchi (Round 7) Nijat Abasov - Vidit Gujrathi, Candidates Tournament 2024 07.jpg, Abasov vs. Vidit (Round 7)

Results by round

Notes

References

External links

Official site

Regulations for the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024
FIDE {{Candidates Tournaments

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